


I wrote him fifteen songs (but still we had to part)

by muppetstiefel



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Badass Cosette, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, Enjolras-centric, Enjolras/Grantaire-centric, F/M, Falling In Love, Feuilly is not in this much but when he is he's the boss, Fights, First Love, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired by Music, M/M, Musicians, Pining Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 11:04:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18991396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: “And Enjolras should’ve known it would always end this way. It’s the age old story: two people fall into love, just to fall back out again.”Or the story of Enjolras and Grantaire, told through all the songs that ever belonged to them.





	I wrote him fifteen songs (but still we had to part)

They meet to the sound of The Beach Boys.

It’s a crowded bar and they’re packed, ten to a table, elbows pressed together. Enjolras sits, conversation swirling above his head, dodging past him, then straight through him. He makes no attempts to gratify the jokes or chime in with any of his own. So instead he sits, nursing his drink and cursing Courfeyrac for bringing him here.

The lights fade without much consideration of the garbled conversations and the jovial laughter cuts off abruptly and dies in the air. Enjolras feels his body holding himself upright, his eyes keeping him fixed on the man who sits, guitar sprawled across his lap.

He clears his throat. Laughs. Introduces himself. 

“Hey everyone. Hope you’re having a good night.”

Eponine cheers.

“I’m R. I’m gonna play some music for you.”

His voice is scratchy. Enjolras doesn’t move.

“Please don’t boo me, I don’t handle criticism very well.”

A trickle of laughter pools in Enjolras’ mouth.

“And don’t worry, I won’t play any original shit. Even I’m not that narcissistic.”

And then he plays.

Enjolras isn’t sure how he turns the chords of a guitar into a symphony. He’s sure its magic, the way his fingers dance and skate across the metal strings, pulling gently in just the right place.

He watches R’s fingers, bitten and red raw, as they strum.

He isn’t sure when R starts singing but soon it’s all he can hear. The words encircle his brain, encase it inside its own spiralling thoughts.

You never need to doubt it  
I’ll make you feel sure about it  
God only knows what I’d be without you-

And then it’s over, and R in grinning as the front table erupts into violent applause, and he mock bows. Enjolras doesn’t even clap, just watches him.

He’s too warm, he registers somewhere in the back of his mind. Folding his clammy hands inwards, pushing back the chair and then he’s out, out, out.

The cold air slaps him in the face then pulls him into a tight embrace. He blows out his cheeks, rubs his hands against his legs, and waits.

Something inside tells him he has to wait.

Just as the last bus edges past the bar, they emerge. Guitar first and then man, following behind dutifully.

Enjolras tries to smile, tries to tell him that the music did something to him, something hes never felt before.

R smiles back through the silence. A half smile, a sliver of what sat on that stage.

They stand silently and wait.

Enjolras waits for his friends. Waits to say something. Waits for the magic again.

And R waits for a moment. To feel the way he makes others feel. For a taxi.

One pulls up at 12:06.  
And R leaves with it.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first time they talk, the room is full with the sound of Ella Fitzgerald.

House parties are not Enjolras scene. The suffocating thumping of the music, the dimness of each hallway, the unescapable feeling of being watched by photos of other people’s families. 

he doesn’t know how it became so engrained in tradition to throw a Christmas party at Joly’s house before they all broke up and splintered back to their own home towns.

He walks with Combeferre and Courfeyrac. Studies their interlocked arms. Their cheery, red faces. Mentally measures the distance between their heads- nearly touching but not quite.

There’s no echoing bass at Joly’s house, just Christmas music filtering on a loop, trickling out of the tinny speakers.

He embraces each of his friends, tries not to think about how the pile of presents and stockings look like a discount hallmark movie.

He unwinds his scarf and sits for a while, half in and half out of the conversation, eyes flitting at each of his friends who sit intertwined. A beating organism of limbs, legs wrapped together, ginger and blonde heads pressing together, delicate fingers tracing the muscle of an arm.

Excusing himself for a drink, he pushes around the sofa holding six bodies and into the kitchen.

Its already occupied. a beat-up pair of jeans poke out from a cupboard as a gentle stream of cursing runs like polyrhythms next to the soft music from the living room. then, a head of messy hair, holding a bottle of baileys.

R smiles at him, tilts the bottle towards him, and asks a simple question, “Enjolras?”

He nods, edging further into the kitchen.

“Would you like a drink Enjolras?”

They drink in silence for a while, sat on the countertop, legs pressed together.

And then they talk for a while. Of Christmas, of school, of the future, of politics. Of R’s cat, of Enjolras’ sister. Of everything, yet nothing.

Almost subconsciously, R starts to sing alongside Louis Jordan, his voice lilting softly. The words die in the air only a few meters from their faces. They belong to the two of them, in that kitchen, and no one else.

Arms drag him to the living room to open presents. As if he didn’t already get everything he could possibly want for Christmas in that kitchen.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

They kiss to the sounds of Rusty Clanton.

The holidays pass Enjolras by uneventfully and he returns to university with an armful of kitchen utensils, a horrible knitted jumper and a distant memory.

Of a kitchen, a drink, and a boy.

He’s half-convinced he dreamt R up. With that side smile, those eyes and that voice that always knows just how to touch the epicentre of his half.

He falls back into his old routine as easily as falling in love.

Lectures in the morning, lunches with Combeferre, assignments in the library and more godawful parties.

He doesn’t see R at any of them.

He doesn’t see R until he walks across campus one February afternoon. The winter weather bites at his heels and he walks faster, almost skipping to get home and inside. That’s when he sees him.

He’s nursing his guitar, back pressed to a café wall and case sitting open, inviting money from passing commuters. He’s wearing a hat, ears covered, and there is a small dotting of stubble encircling his chin.

Enjolras lifts his hand in lieu of a wave.

R stares back at him, through the passers-by.

They get coffee and talk through the silence until it fades altogether.

“How was your holiday?” Enjolras asks.

R answers with a non-committal shrug. “It happened. And yours?”

He closes himself up like a book, Enjolras observes. But he doesn’t mind. Not when theres so much to see from the cover. And so much to read on the blurb.

They can still hear the music as they stand outside the café, a soft stream coating them.

Someday I won’t have to wait for you. 

They press their lips together. Cautiously at first, and then Enjolras melts. His arms find R’s shoulders and he clings to him like a lifeboat, fingers tracing the small of his back.

And in that moment, they both melt into oblivion.

Enjolras is sure you can see scorch marks on the pavement. A shadow of the two of them. 

Intertwined.

Together.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

They fill their first protest with the sounds of Grace Petrie.

It’s weird to Enjolras, just how quickly they fall together. 

They stick. He wasn’t sure they would, but they do. He fits into R’s ridges, and R into his. Hands wrapped around wrists, heads pressed against necks suddenly feels right. And moving together under a sea of sheets feels better than anything Enjolras could possibly imagine.

They don’t fight, though their friends insist they do. Instead they spat. Small things well into biting comments until they both shrug their opinions off and fall together, into over pulsing organism.

Politics strikes the wrong chord with R. A dissonant sound, all the keys of a piano pressed down together. 

And Enjolras wishes he could just let it drop to the floor with everything else. But he can’t.

R finds him hunched over a sign, long stroke of a paint brush filling out the concave of a letter.

“How important is this to you?”

Enjolras can’t find just the right words to answer that question.

And as they lay together that night, Enjolras finds words rolling from his tongue.

“You could come… if you wanted to.”

“Do you want me to?”

Enjolras nods through the darkness.

And the next day he finds R’s fingers laced through his, their paces matched as they march through the heart of the city.

R starts singing, softly at first, like he’s saying an oath under his breath.

You build a wall,  
We’ll build a ladder  
You’re falling leaves  
Dead from the branch.

There’s a girl singing, stood next to him. She smiles at Enjolras and lifts her own banner higher, above her head.

Enjolras watches R, the air falling from his mouth with each word. He squeezes his hand. Presses a kiss to his cheek. Just watches.

You’ll see how much  
A snowflake matters  
When we become  
An avalanche.

R raises their joint fists. A sign of solidarity. 

Two hands tethered together.

Two people tethered together.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

R teaches him how to play The Beatles. 

It’s another night they’ve spent wrapped around one another, Courfeyrac just next door yet no-one around for miles. The morning is coming, ready to encroach on their silent moment of just two.

R is tracing his fingers over Enjolras back, holding him steady and flat against his body. Enjolras plays with a curl of the others hair.

“You really need to get this cut,” he murmurs against his chest, eyes flitting shut.

“Oh yeah?” R returns, shifting slightly to watch his boyfriend, curled in on himself.

Enjolras hums an affirmative. 

“What if I just let it grow out? Become a hermit who never cuts their hair or leaves their room. then we could just stay here forever.”

Enjolras lifts his head to squint up at him, “How would we afford rent?”

“We could just sponge of Courfeyrac.”

“Oh yeah, because he’d love that,” Enjolras snorts. 

They fall back together again, then back to sleep.

When Enjolras awakes, R is cradling his guitar. He wraps his arms around his boyfriend from behind and presses his cheek to his bare back.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Enjolras asks, voice hoarse from sleep.

R simply shrugs, pauses, and then says, “sometimes… I just like to hold it. it makes me feel so powerful.”

Enjolras scrunches up his nose, but says nothing.

“It’s like,” R continues, “this guitar can get me anything I want. When I play it, people listen to me. They actually stop and listen.”

“R-”

He moves away from him, hunched over the guitar. “No, don’t tell me I’m being stupid, because I’m not. This guitar is magic. It got me a job, it got me- it got me you.”

Enjolras shakes his head softly, “No I wasn’t- I was just going to ask… can I play it?”

There is silence, just for a moment. And then R moves the guitar into Enjolras’ lap and wraps his legs around him. He guides his fingers to the right places, the grip on his arms light but firm.

“Just… hold it like that. Yeah, that’s it. and then move your fingers… just there. And strum. Yes, you’ve got it, now just keep doing that…”

Enjolras grins as the gentle sound of music fills the room, wraps around their interconnected bodies. R hums gently, chin pressed to Enjolras’ shoulder. 

“You’re a natural,” he whispers into his ear. 

Enjolras kisses him, light but firm, and they fall back together.

Later, when Enjolras isn’t sure if R’s even awake, he whispers a secret into the air.

“It’s not the guitar that’s magic. It’s you. I didn’t fall in love with your music. I fell in love with you.”

There’s no answer.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

They have their first fight to the sound of Taylor Swift.

The song is light and bubbly but they’re angry. Angry again and angry. Angry for no reason, with no purpose.

The anger comes from the discarded dishes that R leaves on the side.

But really, it comes from much deeper.

From the epicentre of Enjolras heart.

He feels it building, layer upon layer until it pushes against his skin and he can’t breathe for how mad he is.

R sat hunched over his guitar in the middle of the night.

R avoiding his calls, saying he’s working in the studio.

R going radio silent, texts sitting anxiously in his inbox.

R falling out of love with him.

He insists it’s not true but Enjolras is red hot with rejection and he can’t stand it.

He hurls his heart at the wall. Grantaire leaves.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

They make up to the sound of Lifehouse.

Enjolras takes the bus to R’s house, holding his pride in his hands. He discards it at the door in return for the others arms, strong and sturdy and holding him in place.

Grantaire is listening to some cheesy breakup music. They let it play as they peel off the layers of damage and lay together, raw skin stinging. Enjolras digs his nails into the others back and holds on for his life.

Afterwards they stay together. They leave no room for distance to fill, for time to cause a rift between the two of them.

Enjolras tells R he’s magical.

He still doesn’t believe it.

And R tells him of the reason for the distance. The album, sitting finished in a little recording studio owned by a friend.

“I wrote it for you,” he tells Enjolras, “I wrote it all for you.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The moving van arrives with Jack Johnson.

The flat juts out over the Paris skyline, casting shadows and bathing in the sunlight. From the roof terrace you can see the Tour De Eiffel, spiralling into a sharp point in the sky. Its small, but its all theirs.

They unpack a few boxes- namely the stereo which R sets up on the kitchen counter. Enjolras rummages around for the cafetiere in the sea of boxes. 

They eat lunch on the floor of the apartment, which is still lacking any furniture.

Enjolras sits after lunch, stretching his fingertips into the light that dances across the wall. He makes a dog. A crocodile. Then laughs.

R assembles a set of drawers with minimal cursing. They both deem it a success and spend the rest of the day laying side by side amongst the boxes. 

Eponine brings takeaway and they eat on the terrace.

Bossuet and Joly bring flowers. A house warming present. They set them in a pint glass on the newly resurrected kitchen table.

R circles his arms around Enjolras and presses a kiss to his cheek.

He never wants to be anywhere else.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fame sounds like McFly to Enjolras.

The album was his- it was one of the few he owned and added to Grantaire’s vast collection when they moved in together. He likes to listen to it when he works, or does housework, the soft melodies and simple words lulling him. R makes fun of him sometimes, when he catches him mumbling It’s All About You under his breath. But then he’ll sweep Enjolras into his arms and spin him around the kitchen until he’s dizzy. And Enjolras knows, he just knows, that R loves the songs too.

He’s working late under the lamplight in the kitchen.

His eyes are straining.

He pinches the skin around his forehead. Lets go. Rearranges his glasses. Yawns uncomfortably.

Really, he’s waiting for Grantaire. It’s weird, he muses, how quickly you can come to despise sleeping alone when you’re used to sleeping beside someone.

He is humming a tune under his breath, a simple four-note melody when the dark apartment is cast into a square of yellow light. Grantaire’s shadow illuminates the wall, ten feet tall and encroaching.

Enjolras reaches forward. Switches off the lamp.

“Where have you been?” he quizzes, softly shutting his laptop and standing up.

R doesn’t answer. In the silence, a grin seems to stretch further across his face. Enjolras notices a bottle, glistening with condensation, in his left hand. He frowns.

“Where have you been? I was waiting up for you.” He repeats, taking a step further towards the small square of light.

Grantaire and the bottle sweep past him, pulling him along behind the two of them towards the window. It’s a sticky evening and so it sits, slightly ajar and tempting. R opens it all the way and swings himself outside. 

Enjolras follows. As always.

Once outside, Grantaire exhales, a strange, contented sound, and turns to Enjolras. He’s smiling still, and shaking slightly, and Enjolras still can’t figure out why. Then:

“He said yes,” a short phrase, shot haphazardly into the air. Enjolras studies him.

“Who said yes?”

“Malcom,” he pauses, registering Enjolras’ blank look, “the producer? The one who wanted to see a concept album? He said he might be interested so I recorded a demo and…”

“and he said yes?” Enjolras is grinning too, gripping his arms tightly, squeezing and squeezing.

Grantaire just nods, a choked up sound escaping his lips. Then, he throws his arms around Enjolras, encircling his neck viciously. “He actually wants it. he wants my music. He wants…”

“He wants you.”

He feels Grantaire nod again against his shoulder.  
All he can hear is McFly and Grantaire, mixing sweetly in his ear.

If this is love  
Then love is easy  
It’s the easiest thing to do

They stand like that for a while until R pulls away. He drags his hand along his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, still smiling. “Well… I feel a celebration is in order.”

After the drinks have been poured, Enjolras presses their lips together. 

And if he can taste alcohol, must stronger than the cheap champagne in front of them, he doesn’t mention it.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next few months of Enjolras’ life form like a symphony, to the sound of Willie Nelson.

It’s odd, how quickly an album can turn into something much more: tours, TV appearances, screaming fans. Sometimes, Enjolras feels like some days he blinks and there are ten more gigs and thousands more fans.

It’s exhilarating. And a little bit terrifying.

The first album is quickly proceeded by a second. R is appearing on every TV show he can manage, performing snippets of songs and recounting anecdotal stories. Sometimes, Enj attends too, and watches him chat effortlessly from offstage. Wishing he could be up there, holding his hand.

Things don’t change all that much at home. R quits his job at the bar and spends his days off at home, cleaning or writing songs or doing nothing. The doing nothing seems to take precedent over anything else these days. He’ll just sit, staring at a wall like he’s recharging his batteries. But when Enjolras gets home he’s always there to make him forget about the world outside. 

R gets a manager. Cosette, this preppy looking girl. She’s sharp, and witty, and Enjolras loves her. She’s quick to notice when R starts to fade away, the first to suggest he should try anti-depressants, the first to haul his ass out of bed for yet another photoshoot.

The first person Enjolras calls when R is sobbing and vomiting into the nearest toilet.

She suggests rehab, but R declines.

“I’ve just signed on to that press junket to promote the new album, tour starts in two weeks, not to mention the vogue shoot this week. I just don’t have the time to disappear,” he tells the two of them, as casually as discussing dinner.

Cosette sets her mouth into a thin line.

Enjolras pours all the alcohol down the sink. They fight about that, they scream and scream until a neighbour pounds on the door. Jerkily, they stop, not knowing when they really started. They peel off to separate rooms. They make up in the morning.

The day R gets on the plane is the worst day. They had agreed that R would go ahead, do a couple of shows, and then Enjolras would fly over when school finished for the summer. But still, letting him go at the gate is the hardest thing.

“Hey. It’s just three weeks. Even we can do three weeks,” R murmurs reassuringly to Enjolras, whose face is pressed against his shoulder. He’s balled up the back of his coat in his fist.

Enjolras waits until he rounds the terminal, then lets himself cry.

He holds himself together, somehow, in those three weeks. Stumbles through class, talks to friends, makes dinner with his mind somewhere else.

Courfeyrac agreed to come with him so on the 20th day apart the two of them drive to the airport, board the plane and fly to London.

Enjolras wraps his arms around Grantaire’s neck. He prays to never let go.

He wishes for just a minute alone but they’re quickly swept up in Grantaire’s world: whisked into a cab, bundled in through the arenas stage door and led down twisting corridors to a green room. Enjolras feels dizzy, but R never once lets go of his hand the entire time. There are dressers and crew bustling around, attaching microphones everywhere, helping R into his suit and then, just as soon as they came, they’re gone.

The band are still milling around the green room and Courfeyrac is flirting with the bassist in the corner but it feels like it’s just the two of them, alone.

“I’m so glad you came,” R whispers, pressing their foreheads together

“Yeah,” Enjolras agrees, smiling, “me too.”

A voice over the tannoy announces a five-minute call and suddenly R is being bundled out of the room and up a flight of stairs. Enjolras doesn’t take his eyes off him the whole time.

Cosette takes him by the arm and leads him up the flight of stairs to the side of the stage. There, he can see the side of Grantaire’s face as he enters the stage. The way the light hits him and the guitar. The crowds cheering him on.  
All he can hear is the chords, and his voice, reverberating off the eager faces staring up at him. 

Then there’s just R, smiling just at him, arms on his, leading him on stage.

The crowd hits harder out here. Their voices are clearer, louder. R snakes an arm around his waist, pulls him close and kisses him. Its open, its vulnerable. It’s true. 

The crowds just scream and R screams too, hauling Enjolras’ arm up into the air.

“Ladies and gentleman! Please give it up for Enjolras! My muse, my inspiration! The love of my life!”

Enjolras tries to hide his face in his hands. R pulls them away, whispers to him, “Just bask in this. Just for now. Bask in this glory.”

And so he does.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Things crumble to the background of Orla Gartland.

Enjolras flies back to Paris a week after the show in London. He holds onto R at the gate, holds on to London and that night and the feeling that nothing is ever going to end.

This time, R pulls away to take a phone call. Awkwardly, Enjolras shuffles through the gate, looking back to see if R is watching him. He isn’t.

Life falls back into its usual rhythm pretty easily. Sometimes, he misses Grantaire more than anything. Most of the time, he forgets that there was even someone living so permanently in his life.

They call when they can. At first the calls are ever day but they start to fade and after three months Enjolras is lucky if he gets a text once a week. He knows, he knows it’s not R’s fault, that he’s busy and tour is manic, but it still leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

R records a fourth album. Enjolras finds out through twitter. He throws his phone across the room when he reads that. Why wouldn’t he tell him? Why wouldn’t he tell him first?

He gets updates through Cosette. Some of them talk of the shows. Some of them recount funny anecdotes. Most of them let him know of each TV appearance, not that he watches them anymore. It’s not R on that screen, its Grantaire, the singer-songwriter who is rumoured to be spiralling into drug abuse.

Very rarely he’ll wake up to a voice message from R. he’ll be laughing manically, or sobbing, or silent but he always tells Enj that he misses him.

When Enj tries to call in the morning there’s no answer.

He’s out for lunch with Combeferre when it comes up.

“It’s nice that R is coming back for Gavroches party,” he muses between a forkful of salad. 

Enjolras just stares back at him emptily.

Combeferre frowns, “he didn’t tell you?”

Enjolras shrugs, staring at his plate. Then, “He told you?”

“Well, no,” Ferre readjusts his glasses, “It was on twitter. He said he was flying back to Paris. And Eponine said that he’s be texting her, asking her for the party details so I just assumed-”

Enjolras changes the conversation to university. R isn’t brought up again.

Grantaire lets him know he’s landing in Paris, via text, on the day. Yet Enjolras still drags himself to the airport and waits by departures.

R is a mess. A mop of hair, a hood and a pair of sunglasses being pursued by cameras. He takes Enjolras’ hand, squeezes it but keeps walking. His smile is dead and empty.

In the car he wraps his arms around him, and Enjolras melts.

“I missed you. God, I missed you,” R murmurs gruffly, and it’s enough.

They fall together again, and again. Enjolras traces his ribs, which stick out beneath his skins with is thumb, but says nothing.

Afterwards they lie together. Enjolras watches R, who watches nothing. 

“I’m sorry…” R whispers into the dead air, “for not calling more.”

Enjolras says nothing.

“I never knew what to say. I couldn’t- you wouldn’t want to be burdened with my- shit…” he curses softly, closes his eyes in a long hard blink.

“I always want to be burdened with you,” Enjolras murmurs, half-joking, half-not.

R says nothing. Just rolls of the bed, pads to the bathroom and slams the door.

They don’t really talk in the lead up to Gavroches party. Enj works and R drinks and they do so in silence.

Enjolras wishes he could tip the gin down the sink. But he’s not sure it’s his place anymore.

On the day of the party, R starts drinking at nine o’clock. He’s decanted the alcohol into a water bottle, which is shoved in his pocket. Enjolras holds his hand on the way over, as he shakes and swears and drinks more. He’s nervous, Enj observes. But then, so is he. Nervous of saying the wrong thing, taking a wrong step. So instead he does nothing.

Gavroche opens the door and R drops Enj’s hand in favour of spinning the birthday boy around. He’s grinning, laughing, as Eponine embraces him and he greets each of his friends. Enj wants to scream ‘it’s an act’ but instead he smiles politely and watches. Silently.

He spends the night watching R, who spends the night refilling his water bottle. He plays with Eponine’s brothers, arm wrestles with Bahorel, but something is off. His eyes are wild and he’s laughing a little too loud but no one seems to notice.

He’s halfway through a bottle of wine when Enjolras excuses himself for some air. He feels like he’s gasping for breath, squatting on Eponine’s front steps.

Strong arms embrace him. Combeferre, holding him together. Someone is wiping away his tears. Courfeyrac.

Things seem to fall apart so quickly, he tells them.

Are they gonna fall apart completely?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The beginning feels like Ben Folds.

They have two weeks before R has to leave. Enjolras feels like he’s dreaming when he finds out. Two weeks, commitment free.  
They spend the first few days in bed together, legs tangled and bodies panting. Or simply sleeping, curled up around one another. R traces his fingers along Enjolras’ back, playing him delicately like a piano.

The next days after that are spent with friends. They have lunch with Combeferre and Feuilly, catch up on all the superhero movies with Courfeyrac. They spend a night as a group at the Corinthe, Enjolras wrapped protectively under his boyfriend’s arm. Grantaire drinks too much and Bahorel helps Enjolras haul him home. 

Enjolras spends the night crying, alone in the kitchen.

By the second week, R is itchy and restless. He’s never off his phone, thumb scrolling automatically through Instagram, obsessively searching up his own name. Enjolras wants to throw the phone against the wall. Instead, he just watches.

He comes back from getting groceries and finds R curled in a ball, sweating and shivering. He tries to call an ambulance but R wrestles his phone from his grip and throws it against the wall. So instead, Enjolras wraps him up in a duvet and brings a bottle to his lips. 

On the last night, they fight. A huge row, shaking the walls of the apartment and each of them. They carve into each other with their words. Enjolras throws bottle after bottle out of the window. R grips the front of his shirt and hauls him against the wall.

Its nasty. Bitter. Like dogs fighting in the street.

Enjolras spits in his face.

R leaves.

After he’s gone, Enj throws himself into bed, whimpering and sobbing beneath the duvet.

He opens his laptop. Lets the sound of Ben Folds fill the room.

That I am,  
I am,  
I am  
The luckiest.

It feels like an eternity since R had swept him up into his arms and whirled him around the kitchen to that song.

They had both been giddy with first love, and drunk on the excitement of being together. 

R had dipped him. He had laughed.

“If we ever get married,” R had vowed, “this is going to be our first dance.”

They sealed the deal with a kiss.

Enjolras falls asleep with an aching hole in his heart and Ben Folds in his head.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

True love is the sound of Abba.

Grantaire gets on the flight just as September gets its claws on Paris. Enjolras refuses to drive him to the airport, instead stays curled up in bed, burrowed under the sheets. Cosette drives him instead.

Slowly, piece by piece, he puts himself back together. Washes his face. Calls his mother. Texts R and tells him he misses him. That he’s sorry. That he loves him. 

Then he throws himself, fully and wholly, into the last months of school, spending hours writing his dissertation of his balcony. Their balcony.

They force themselves back together, even if it’s not a perfect fit. R calls every night and together they fill the awkward, stilted conversation with tales of home. Enjolras tells him of Courfeyrac’s new crush, the gangly ginger bartender at the Musain. Grantaire talks of his new stylist, Jehan, and their fast friendship. They exchange pleasantries and repeat ‘I love you’s until one of them has to hang up. It’s enough to allow Enjolras to pretend everything is normal.

Two days before Enjolras’ final class, Cosette calls him and informs him to pack a bag and get his ass to the airport. When he gets there he finds a red-faced Cosette, clutching two plane tickets.

She grabs his arm and pulls him towards security. “Sorry for the haste, this is all very last minute,” she explains to the bemused and bewildered Enjolras, “he only sprung this on us yesterday and we’ve been desperately trying to keep up with it all.”

“Keep up with what?” Enjolras questions as they dodge a crowd of holiday-makers.

“R and his stupid plans. He’s got a show tonight, and then one in two days’ time and he suddenly accosted us and told us to fly you over.”

Enjolras lets out an awkward laugh, covering his face with one hand. “Why?”

Cosette stops abruptly and narrows her eyes, which are fixed on him. “He said something about a three-year anniversary?”

Enjolras nods, stunned. “He’s crappy with dates… he remembered this all by himself?”

Cosette hums an affirmative, and then she’s pulling him through the gate and their boarding the plane.

Halfway through the flight, she leans over and whispers to him. “I’m so glad you two are making up. You’re good for each other.”

By the time they arrive, Enjolras feels tired and sloppy. He had tried to fix himself up in the plane bathroom but it felt stupid, it all felt stupid, because it’s just Grantaire.

Grantaire, who hugs him at the gate. Grantaire, who can’t keep his hands off him in the cab. Grantaire, who won’t stop saying how much he loves him.

He doesn’t want to let go, even when he has to go on stage to perform. He holds Enjolras’ hand the entire hand, squeezes it like a lifeline. Up close, it’s so easy to see how much he’s shaking. The glistening of sweat on his forehead. The remnants of powder, smeared around his nose. But the crowds won’t see it from so far away.

And Enjolras can ignore it too, because he knows it’ll all be forgotten when he starts to play.

After the show they spend the night lazily in Grantaire’s hotel room. they both drink. It helps to ignore any sign of a problem.

They fuck. Long and slow. Again and again and again until they sleep.

They talk. For hours and hours. Of anything except what they are, what they’re becoming.

But mostly, they dance. The room is stocked with old vinyl’s and the record player, sitting, lid open, on the dressing table. R chooses Abba. He spins Enjolras dizzy, dips him and presses their bodies together until they’re only one being.

“Tread lightly on my ground, Enjolras,” he murmurs into his ear.

I’ll try to, Enjolras says to himself.

I’ll try to.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The storm comes to the sound of Honeywater.

A bubbling begins, under the surface. After Budapest, Enjolras flies back to Paris and straight back into school. He turns his phone off for three days, which he spends on his sofa ploughing through his dissertation.

The fourth day is interrupted by Combeferre banging on his door. He’s holding wine, and he’s frantic and Enjolras knows, he just knows. 

Combeferre tells him not to look but he does.

Photos of R. Pressed up against another person. Kissing another person. Naked with another person.

The photos dated only a day after Enjolras flew home.

He calls R to yell at him, to end it, but he can’t because R is crying, he’s crying and he’s apologising and Enjolras starts crying too.

It’s scary, how easily he falls back in love with him. Maybe he just can’t fall out of love.

He feels nothing but numb, a strange sort of numb where he still cries every day over parking tickets but never over himself. 

He resumes his life, both with Grantaire and without him. He dives further into his work. He organises more strikes and petitions and rallies. He spends Christmas with Combeferre’s family to avoid having to answer questions about R at his house. He kisses a guy from his theology class at New Years and spends weeks feeling guilty about it.

He calls R every other week. Sometimes he gets through. Sometime he gets Cosette, telling him R is on set or stage or sleeping. Most of the times his call goes to voicemail.

They try to build themselves back up. Things are still stilted like before Budapest, except now all their words are sharp, aimed. Enjolras doesn’t bring up the photos again. doesn’t mention the kiss. And R never mentions anything other than their friends, or how wonderful the tour is going.

Graduation looms. He throws himself fully into his course, passing with a first. Courfeyrac takes him shopping for graduation robes, holds his hand when he calls R to invite him. The call goes to voicemail. He never expected anything less. 

So instead he gives his tickets to Cosette and, due to Courfeyrac’s begging, the ginger bartender Marius.

Then, the week before the actual ceremony, he gets a text from Grantaire. A simple picture, of him in a suit, with the message: “Graduation ready baby ;)”

Enjolras’ heart skips a beat when he sees it. He hates himself for that.

He ends up writing to the school and begging for an extra ticket to graduation. It takes seven email and three phone calls but he manages it. He keeps the ticket in his drawer, like a reassurance- Grantaire is coming. He’s coming.

Grantaire arrives the night before. He’s wearing the suit in the picture, but its ripped up the sleeve and stained brown with what Enjolras’ assumes is whiskey. 

He has a hangover on the day of the graduation. When Enjolras tells him he has to change, a shouting match ensues and only ends when Combeferre and Joly arrive to offer them a lift. They plaster over the fight with smiles but Enjolras still has fists clenched by his sides and Grantaire is pushing down a bottle of rum.

They don’t talk in the car over, or at the ceremony. Enjolras sees the boy from his theology class and has to hold back the bile rising in his throat. Instead, he clings to Grantaire and smiles at everyone.

Grantaire starts to sway slightly and he’s frowning at the crowds of people watching him.

“Why are they staring at me?” he mutters loudly, pulling away from Enjolras’ grip.

“Because you’re famous, mate,” Courfeyrac replies, nudging him with his elbow.

“Maybe because you’re drinking from a hip flask at eleven in the morning?” Combeferre reasons, tone light but words not joking.

Enjolras, however, fixes his glare on Grantaire, hisses “because you’re making a fucking scene” and storms past him.

He sits alone in the church for a while, quietly seething and staring at nothing. He feels a hand on his arm. A shuffling. Someone sitting down.

“You okay?” Feuilly’s voice is light, and he’s not pitying him and Enj feels like he could cry.

Instead he nods, then shakes his head. Silence stretches out in front of them.

“I guess… I’m just scared. Our lives have been centred around ‘us’ for so long. I’m scared-”

He exhales. Feuilly says nothing.

“We’re like planets. Him and me. And we orbit around one another. Always have.  
And I’m scared if- if I pull myself off the axis, ill pull him off too.”

“Enjolras, mate,” Feuilly laughs, soft and not cruel, “you can’t pull him off-centre any more than he is right now. If anything, you might just help him reset.”

The ceremony passes without hitch. Enjolras collects his diploma and his friends cheer and Grantaire watches him silently, bottle pressed to his lips.

They walk home under a rain cloud. Grantaire, drunk and restless and so bored. And Enjolras, numb and tired.

They don’t fight. Enjolras just stands, graduation robes tucked under one arm, dedication set in his face. He doesn’t cry. Doesn’t need to. He’s already spent so many years mourning the end of all of this.

And Grantaire doesn’t retaliate. He just takes it all, face set.

They talk all night. Sit together yet a sea apart on the balcony, sharing cigarettes and final secrets.

Enjolras tells him to get help. Grantaire tells him to find the life he wants.

And when they part, they do so with a handshake, broken hearts and sad smiles.

At the door, Grantaire freezes, half basked in the light of morning.

“You know what Enjolras? I fucking love you. I don’t think that’ll ever change.”

“Me too.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And time feels like them.

Enjolras pulls himself up a week after the break up. He glues himself back together in his bathroom at 4AM, and prays that he’ll stick. And by some miracle, he does. 

R moves to England. Uproots his life and relocates without any sign of inconvenience. Cosette follows, ever the diligent manager, this time with Marius in tow. Good for her, Enjolras thinks.

Enj spends the first months testing himself out. It’s true, he thinks, how you have to learn to be a singular person after a break up. Learn to walk again with two legs instead of four. Practise breathing with only one set of lungs. 

He sells the flat. Crashes on Feuilly’s sofa. Then, throws himself straight back into life. 

Anniversaries are the hardest. At their four-year he can barely breathe, and he finds himself checking social media for any sign of Grantaire, or a possible partner, or anything. He always comes up empty.

R deleted twitter three months after their breakup. Then admitted himself into rehab and stopped touring. His sixth album, Heal, releases on their fifth anniversary.

By then, Enjolras can breathe again.

He moves to southern France, away from any trace of his past and starts again.

Six years later he finds himself back in Paris.

He’s visiting for Combeferre and Eponine’s anniversary, swinging down to celebrate before taking himself to visit his parents.

He’d forgotten how unpredictable the Paris metro was and so he finds himself in the centre with hours to spare. So he takes himself for a walk down memory lane.

Their apartment still looms out over the Parisian landscape. He basks under its shadow and watches two girls giddily embrace in the window. It was always a place of love, Enjolras muses, and it should stay that way. 

He crosses the road and finds himself encased in the past. The home of first dates, new love and fresh kisses sits before him. He orders a black coffee and sits in the window, watching the people pass by.

The air is hot and sticky and the radio is loud. He can hear every syllable leaking from the tinny speaker.

And then he can hear R’s voice, gruff yet clear, radiating around the room.

“I actually wrote this song, John, after a break up. It was a very significant experience for me. I feel like the blossoming and ending of young love heavily inspired the album as a whole, but especially this track.”

“and it’s called…”

“It’s called Paris, John. And this is for you, Enjolras.”

He downs the rest of his coffee and stands up. Time for my final exit, he muses, winding a scarf around his neck and welcoming the cold air. Just as the sound of the two of them hits him.

A bittersweet symphony. A tune of melancholy nostalgia.

Exactly how it was always meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> oof!! this took me a ridiculously long time to write and I'm not sure how much I like it but here it is!!
> 
> Grantaire isn't really an asshole we just happen to be seeing this from the perspective of Enjolras so it's a little bit skewed!!
> 
> here are all the songs mentioned:  
> God Only Knows - The Beach Boys  
> Baby It's Cold Outside - Ella Fitzgerald  
> Novels - Rusty Clanton  
> You Build A Wall - Grace Petrie  
> Love Me Do - The Beatles  
> We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift  
> Whatever It Takes - Lifehouse  
> Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson  
> Love Is Easy - McFly  
> On The Road Again - Willie Nelson  
> Inevitable - Orla Gartland  
> The Luckiest - Ben Folds  
> Andante, Andante - Abba  
> So Little Time - Honeywater  
> Paris - The 1975
> 
> title taken from subsitute by Frank Turner!!


End file.
